has left Tadmor;
and, in justice to her (after the scandals in the newspaper), I must
tell you how she left it, and why. The mischief began when I was helping
her out of the boat. Two of our young women met us on the bank of the
lake, and asked me how I got on with my fishing. They didn't mean any
harm--they were only in their customary good spirits. Still, there was
no mistaking their looks and tones when they put the question. Miss
Mellicent, in her confusion, made matters worse. She coloured up, and
snatched her hand out of mine, and ran back to the house by herself.
The girls, enjoying their own foolish joke, congratulated me on my
prospects. I must have been out of sorts in some way--upset, perhaps,
by what I had heard in the boat. Anyhow, I lost my temper, and _I_ made
matters worse, next. I said some angry words, and left them. The same
evening I found a letter in my room. 'For your sake, I must not be seen
alone with you again. It is hard to lose the comfort of your sympathy,
but I must submit. Think of me as kindly as I think of you. It has
done me good to open my heart to you.' Only those lines, signed by
Mellicent's initials. I was rash enough to keep the letter, instead of
destroying it. All might have ended well, nevertheless, if she had only
held to her resolution. But, unluckily, my twenty-first birthday was
close at hand; and there was talk of keeping it as a festival in the
Community. I was up with sunrise when the day came; having some farming
work to look after, and wanting to get it over in good time. My shortest
way back to breakfast was through a wood. In the wood I met her."

"Alone?" Mr. Hethcote asked.

Rufus expressed his opinion of the wisdom of putting this question with
his customary plainness of language. "When there's a rash thing to be
done by a man and a woman together, sir, philosophers have remarked that
it's always the woman who leads the way. Of course she was alone."

"She had a little present for me on my birthday," Amelius explained--"a
purse of her own making. And she was afraid of the ridicule of the young
women, if she gave it to me openly. 'You have my heart's dearest wishes
for your happiness; think of me sometimes, Amelius, when you open your
purse.' If you had been in my place, could you have told her to go away,
when she said that, and put her gift into your hand? Not if she had been
looking at you at the moment--I'll swear you couldn't have done it!"

The lean yellow f